LETTER: Remove the bully, not the victim

According to your recent article, Flagler Schools will be complying with a new state law that lets children who have been bullied in public schools transfer to another school or receive a "scholarship" to transfer to a private school.

With this logic you will end up with schools that are virtually empty. It would be better to remove the bully rather than separate the victims from the friends and teachers with whom they feel comfortable and look to for support. If you remove the victims, the bully will surely find another child to bully.

A better solution would be to suspend the offending students and require them to attend counseling sessions at their parents' expense until they can prove that they can be trusted around the general population of the school. If they persist in their bad behavior, then the bully should be permanently removed from the school.

Mary Ann Gulli

Palm Coast

City needs better rec center pools

Editor's note: Glenn Partelow is the coach for the Matanzas High School swim team and the adult Masters swim team.

The writer said the city has tennis courts and golf courses but failed to understand the poor facilities for swimming.

The Frieda Zamba pool operated by the city is a facility that is old and not able to handle the needs of the city of Palm Coast. It is not deep enough to allow teams to dive in head first nor is it cooled in the summer heat. The water is often above 87 degrees (I carry a thermometer in my swim bag, and I swim nearly every day).

Further, the locker rooms have no lockers and are open to the weather. Each one offers one shower.

The other pool, at the Belle Terre Swim and Racquet Club, is also not deep enough for competition, and summer water temperatures have been above 90 degrees at times.

The Parks and Recreation Department also closes Frieda on weekends after Labor Day and doesn’t open until 2 p.m. How do we encourage swimming recreation when, in the heat of September and October, families have no weekend pool to cool off? The pool then does not open until April.

I have spoken to city officials and have discovered that a new aquatic facility is on the 10-year unfunded category. At least we could find a modest amount of money to develop a plan to build a modern well-run pool for adults and children for competition, rehabilitation, and lessons and general health.